


Timothy 5:8

by MelissaWritesStuff



Series: Leviticus 20:13 [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Absent Parents, Alternate Universe - High School, Financial Issues, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, Religion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-04-05 22:38:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4197651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelissaWritesStuff/pseuds/MelissaWritesStuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.</em> </p>
<p>Tetsurou Kuroo just wants to graduate.</p>
<p>He just wants to go to college.</p>
<p>He just wants to get a nice job, and start a family, and live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood.</p>
<p>Tetsurou Kuroo just wants Kei Tsukishima.</p>
<p>But some things are just too much to ask for.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <em>A companion to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3158324/chapters/6855833">Leviticus 20:13</a></em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

_If you want to try and fix your hair, you have to get up now_ , Tetsurou thought to himself as he reached for his phone to stop the horrific, screeching alarm coming from it. _Turn off the alarm. Don’t hit snooze. Get out of bed. Fix your hair._

Tetsurou opened one eye just enough to see what he was doing, looked at his phone screen for about five seconds, and hit snooze.

If it was difficult for Tetsurou to get himself out of bed on a normal day, it was nothing compared to how much he desperately did not want to get out of bed on this day in particular.

Willow Creek Private Christian Academy, grades nine through twelve, was an educational experience Tetsurou was only subjecting himself to because he simply had no other options. He’d personally fucked all of his other options, and now he was stuck making his mom pay a fortune so he could spend his senior year with a bunch of bible-thumping WASPs in training. While everyone else was spending their senior years making the best last memories they could with their friends, Tetsurou was absolutely friendless. His old friends weren’t speaking to him anymore, and his prospects for new friends looked bleak.

Even if Tetsurou managed to make any new friends at Willow Creek, they’d probably abandon him the second they learned a few particular things about him (like that he didn’t believe in God, or that his first kiss had been with a boy and he’d liked it).

Even if he managed to keep his sacrilegious beliefs and unholy sexuality secret, his friendships would rely on him having to sit and suffer in silence whenever someone made a homophobic comment, pretend to laugh, act like that wasn’t him they were talking about.

Even if he was completely wrong, and everyone would be great and loving and accepting, and it was the best goddamn year of his life, he would still be weighed down with the guilt knowing that his mom had to take on so many more hours at work to make sure he got his high school diploma, and the knowledge that his slim chances of going to college were getting slimmer day by day.

Tetsurou’s alarm went off a few more times before he finally dragged himself out of bed, rubbing his eyes and blindly making his way out of his room, across the hall, and into the bathroom. He’d done this so many times, he didn’t need to see what he was doing. Still, he couldn’t be perfect, especially not on a morning like today, and when he went to turn on the shower, he stubbed his toe on the corner of a wall that was closer than Tetsurou had been anticipating.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Tetsurou hissed, leaning against the wall as he grabbed at his foot. “Motherfucking goddamn fucking shit...”

Once the throbbing in his toe died down and he let out a deep breath to calm himself down, Tetsurou took another moment to just stand with his back to the wall, eyes closed as he thought about just how much he did not want to go to Willow Creek today. Before getting kicked out, he’d always thought Maple Park High was just a heap of bricks, dust, and bullshit arranged into a public school, but now, he’d give just about anything to be back there. After the loneliest summer of his life, all Tetsurou wanted was to be with his old friends again.

And God, after everything that had happened, he still wanted to be with Matt again.

 _I don’t want to go_ , Tetsurou thought to himself, squeezing his eyes shut tight and trying to hold back frustrated tears. _I don’t want to go_.

But then again, when had the universe ever cared about what Tetsurou Kuroo wanted?

~

“Morning, sweetheart,” Tetsurou’s mom said when Tetsurou came shuffling into the kitchen, as clean as he could be after a two minute shower. “Excited for your first day?”

“Thrilled,” Tetsurou mumbled as he went to make himself some toast.

“You look nice in your uniform,” his mom told him, sounding like she was just trying to be positive about something.

“I better, it cost so goddamn much.”

“You might want to stop swearing,” she advised him. “You don’t want to make a bad impression with your teachers on your first day.”

Tetsurou gave an obviously fake smile. “Any other aspects of my personality I should hide?”

“The part of you that’s in such a bad mood,” she said, topping off her cup of coffee. “I know you don’t want to go, sweetie, but you should at least try to make some friends.”

Tetsurou sighed. “Yeah, these are the kinds of people I _really_ want to make friends with.”

“They might be better than your old friends,” his mom pointed out, sounding a little less pleasant about it.

Tetsurou swallowed. He’d let himself cry a little in the shower, he didn’t need to cry a second time this morning. “You really want to get into this again?” he asked. “Like I don’t already know how shitty my old friends were?”

She sighed, and Tetsurou knew he’d made her feel bad, but he didn’t apologize. “Tetsu,” she said gently. “I _know_ you don’t want to go to Willow Creek. But you just have to. So, just... Please. Force a positive attitude for _one_ day. Alright?”

“Fine,” Tetsurou mumbled. He turned to look at his mom and gave her a more genuine smile, as genuine as he could manage.

Tetsurou’s mom gave his shoulder a squeeze and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “There we go. Who knows? You might meet some really great people. You could even meet a _boy_ ,” she teased.

Tetsurou snorted. “Really?” he said flatly.

“You never know!”

“Mom, any boy at that school that just has a _chance_ of liking me has gotta be so deep in the closet, it’ll take him a year to crawl his way out,” Tetsurou said as he started spreading peanut butter on his pieces of toast.

“Yeah, well, you’ll make friends then.”

Tetsurou was about to make another snide comment when his mom interrupted with a quick, “ _Positive_!”

“Positive,” Tetsurou repeated halfheartedly before stuffing his mouth with toast.

~

Tetsurou didn’t say much as he drove his mom to work. He was too busy feeling bad that this new school was so much further from the assisted living facility his mom worked at, good old Sunny Loch. His old school was about a ten minute walk from Sunny Loch, which had made sharing a car between the two of them pretty easy. Tetsurou’s mom drove him to school in the mornings, and after school, he’d make the walk to Sunny Loch, say hello to his mom and some of her best patients, and take the car home. When she finished with work, Tetsurou would come pick her up. It had been a good system.

Now, his mom was going to have to take the bus whenever her always-flexible and ever-expanding work schedule was too early or too late for them to carpool. Tetsurou would just take a school bus if he could, but there were only so many bus routes offered by Willow Creek, and none of them even came _close_ to Tetsurou’s neighborhood. Driving was the only option he had.

And he had no one to blame but himself.

“You’re gonna try and have a good day, right?” his mom asked quietly as they pulled into the Sunny Loch parking lot.

“Yeah, I’m gonna try,” Tetsurou assured her with a sigh.

“Be nice to your teachers,” she reminded him.

“I will.”

“Make sure you get caught up with your classes.”

“I will.”

“Try and make some friends.”

“I will.”

“Don’t make friends with the troublemakers this time.”

 _Fucking..._ “ _I will_ , mom. Please.”

She unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over to press another kiss to his cheek, wiping off a little lipstick from his face as she told him, “Have a good day.”

“I’ll try,” Tetsurou said, because he wasn’t making any promises.

His mom opened the door and slid out of the car. “I love you.”

“Love you, too, mom,” Tetsurou called after her. “Tell Ukai-san I said hey.”

And once his mom was in the building, Tetsurou drove off, half-considering just driving home and avoiding his problems. But school wasn’t free anymore, and his mom was paying a _lot_ , which meant that missing a day of school was wasting money.

Tetsurou had no other options.

~

First period was almost weirdly anticlimactic.

Tetsurou was starting school a couple of weeks after the school year had actually started, as he’d had to wait for his mom’s next payday to start paying tuition, so he was expecting the whole nine yards of, “Hey, class, we have a new student, so please give a warm, Willow Creek welcome to (insert mispronunciation of “Tetsurou Kuroo” here).” Instead, his first period pre-calc teacher seemed to be a very no-nonsense type of person. There was a quick mention of Tetsurou’s presence and a request to make him feel welcome, but then the teacher began lecturing and Tetsurou was quickly forgotten.

It suited Tetsurou just fine. The only reason Tetsurou was at this school was so he could get his diploma. Maybe he didn’t need to make friends. Maybe he could just keep his head down, not talk to anyone, do all of his work in silence, and spend his free time doing homework. If he could get as good of grades as he did while spending so much time with his friends back at Maple Park, he could easily obtain a 4.0 GPA if he was friendless.

Still, Tetsurou couldn’t stick to his resolution of being a studious social outcast for longer than about ten seconds, and when he saw that no one else really seemed to be taking notes on the lesson, he decided he wouldn’t either.

 _Why is no one else taking notes?_ he wondered, leaning his head against his hand and tapping his foot under his desk. _Does everyone else already know this? Is this a review lesson? Should I know this?_

God, Tetsurou didn’t want to be the only one taking notes, but he was itching to write down the example problems for future reference. What if this was on the homework? What if this was on a quiz or a test? What if this was going to be important for the rest of the semester?

After about ten minutes of trying to be cool and blending in with everyone else, Tetsurou caved and switched back to studious social outcast, pulling out his notebook and flipping through to the nearest blank page. As hard as he tried to ignore it, he couldn’t help but notice about fifteen pages he’d flipped past full of bad doodles and little hearts and half-finished poems, all titled _Matt._

_Matt. Matt. Matt._

Even though he’d gotten out his notebook to help him be a better student, it had resulted in the opposite, because now he couldn’t even focus on the lesson at all with his thoughts solely focused on Matt.

_Matt. Matt. Matt._

The reason Tetsurou was here in the first place. 

Tetsurou’s best friend for the past three years.

Tetsurou’s first crush.

Tetsurou’s first kiss.

He was also the first person to ever call Tetsurou a fag, after he punched Tetsurou in the face after said kiss. He wasn’t the first to punch Tetsurou in the face, but the first time for that had been Matt’s fault, too.

Tetsurou still just felt sick with shame every time he thought about everything that had happened with Matt, how absolutely stupid he’d been, how naive he’d been...

He couldn’t even really blame Matt for how stupid he’d been at first. He could blame Matt for getting into some pointless fight in the first place, especially when it was Matt’s third fight and he _knew_ that it only took three fights to get expelled, but it was all Tetsurou’s own fault for stepping between them and getting sucker punched. It was all Tetsurou’s own fault for taking the fall for Matt,and telling every school official who’d listen that Matt had nothing to do with it.

It had been worth it in Tetsurou’s eyes later when he’d finally emerged from the principal’s office and was greeted with a huge smile and a hug from Matt, and was told that he was the best friend Matt had ever had, and that Matt didn’t know what he’d do without him.

“It won’t happen again,” Tetsurou had assured his mom later, when he had to explain to her why he had two weeks of detention. “I promise. But oh, my God, you should’ve seen him, mom, he was so happy and he even _hugged_ me.”

“Sweetheart, you can’t get yourself in trouble to make a boy like you,” his mom had groaned.

“I didn’t, I did it because I’m a loyal friend!” Tetsurou had insisted. “The hug was just a bonus!”

His mom had just sighed. “Tetsu, you’re smart. You’re handsome. You have ambition and goals. You’re a good boy. Don’t you think you can do better than Matt?”

And Tetsurou had sighed right back at her, because she just didn’t understand. She didn’t see Matt the way Tetsurou saw him.

Tetsurou saw how Matt would walk just a little bit closer to him when they were out at night because he was afraid of the dark. Tetsurou saw Matt when he came to school shaking because his dad had been yelling at him all morning. Tetsurou saw the way Matt’s nose crinkled when he laughed and the way he absentmindedly ruffled his hair when he was thinking and the concentration in his eyes when he drew elaborate flowers on his arms with a ballpoint pen. From his worst moments to his best, from his slurred speech when he was drunk and his breath that smelled like cigarettes to his deadpan sense of humor and his soft brown eyes, Matt was adorable, and all Tetsurou wanted was to have him to himself, to kiss him and hold his hand and take care of him when he needed it. It didn’t matter to Tetsurou that his mom thought he wasn’t worth it, because Tetsurou knew that he was.

Tetsurou had _thought_ that he was.

The second time was really both of their faults, when Matt had absolutely _begged_ Tetsurou to take the fall for him a second time.

“Please, T,” he’d said, his voice starting to shake. “I can’t get expelled, my dad’ll kill me. You know that.”

“Then why the hell are you getting into fights?” Tetsurou had snapped, angry because Matt begging him like this was breaking his heart and he knew he couldn’t say no.

“I won’t anymore,” Matt had promised him. “I swear, T, I swear I’ll never do anything wrong again. I’ll quit smoking, I’ll stop drinking so much, I’ll do anything, just _please_.”

So Tetsurou had taken the fall for him a second time. This time he got suspended from school, and his mom grounded him for a month, taking away his phone and everything.

Tetsurou had gotten another hug, but it felt less worth it this time around when a week later, another friend of his told him all about how he’d seen Matt shotgunning Kate Roberts at a party over the weekend. Tetsurou was in physical pain by the time his friend started laughing about how Matt and Kate had snuck off somewhere more private.

“Like he would know what to do with a girl like _Kate Roberts_ ,” his friend had said. “Probably the most disappointing night of her life.”

“Probably,” Tetsurou agreed halfheartedly while thinking about how this was quickly becoming one of the most disappointing moments of his.

And his mom had told him that he should try to move on, that Tetsurou didn’t even know if Matt would _accept_ that he was gay, much less feel the same way. And Tetsurou knew that she was probably right. But then when Tetsurou got his phone back, he texted Matt and the first thing Matt said was,

_From Mattie~:  
dude ur back! thats gr8 i was startin2 miss u_

And Tetsurou fell right back in. He fell _hard_.

Tetsurou spent about a month being even more obsessed over Matt than ever. He was completely infatuated, and what made it so bad and what spurred Tetsurou on so much was that Matt actually seemed to be reciprocating. They started getting closer and closer, staying up late texting instead of sleeping, spending all of their time together. Once, they even snuck out ridiculously early in the morning to just sit in the bleachers at their school and watch the sunrise over the football field, and Tetsurou felt ready to confess his love right then and there. He managed to contain himself that night, but about a week later, he wasn’t so lucky.

Tetsurou and Matt were sitting in some low-traffic hallway instead of the cafeteria during lunch, completely alone as they laughed and made jokes over stupid things, leaning in just a little closer every time they muttered some punchline they wouldn’t want anyone else to hear. And then there was this moment, this pause where their laughter had died down but there were still these soft smiles on their faces as they caught their breath, still leaned in close but neither one saying a word.

 _This is it_ , Tetsurou thought to himself, something in him just knowing that this was his moment. _This is gonna be my first kiss._

He quickly leaned in before he could second guess himself, and then his lips were pressed against Matt’s. For a moment, for a fraction of a second, it was absolutely wonderful. It was warm and gave Tetsurou the best dip in his stomach, and he didn’t even care about the taste of tobacco on Matt’s lips or the scratch of unshaven stubble on his cheek. It was _Matt_ , and Tetsurou was kissing him, and for that fraction of a second, Tetsurou was happy.

But then that fraction of a second ended.

Matt violently jerked back away from Tetsurou. and before Tetsurou could register what was happening, his head was hitting painfully against the lockers behind him as Matt’s fist collided with his jaw. The taste of Matt was quickly replaced with the taste of blood.

“What the fuck?!” Tetsurou shouted, wincing against the throbbing pain in his jaw.

Matt spit on the floor, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his hoodie. “What the fuck are _you_ doing?!” he yelled back, scrambling to his feet. “You fucking faggot!”

Tetsurou’s heart felt like it collapsed in on itself.

Tetsurou immediately got up and lunged forward, grabbing the collar of Matt’s shirt and slamming him against a row of lockers. “ _Fuck you_!”

And that was the moment a teacher showed up, and the moment Tetsurou knew he’d _royally_ fucked up.

It didn’t matter how much he begged the principal, trying to explain that this was technically his first fight and he’d never even hit anyone. It didn’t matter that Matt had hit him first. It didn’t matter that Matt had provoked him. Nothing mattered. Tetsurou was expelled. He was expelled, he was expelled, he was expelled...

_God, I’m so stupid..._

With his thoughts so lost in how stupid he’d been and how much he hated (and still somehow wanted) Matt, Tetsurou spaced out on his entire math lesson, and his notebook pages stayed blank.

_A perfect start._

~

Second period was a little more like what he’d anticipated first period to be, instead of the flashback-fest it had turned into. His teacher had him stand at the front of the class and introduce himself, and everyone responded with a dull chorus of, “Hi, Tetsurou.” He ended up sat between a pretty girl and a very pretty boy, both with blond hair and light eyes, and both watching him out of the corner of their eyes.

“Alright, everyone get into small groups with the people around you,” the teacher called out. “Start discussing the last few chapters of _Huckleberry Finn_. Oh, Mr. Kuroo, do you have a copy of Huck Finn?”

 _Shit, was that something else I was supposed to buy?_ “No, I don’t.”

“They should have a few copies in the library, why don’t you run get one? Do you know where the library is?”

“No, I don’t,” Tetsurou repeated, feeling stupid even if it wasn’t his fault he didn’t know.

“Mr. Hewitt, can you take Mr. Kuroo to the library?”

“Sure,” said the pretty blond boy on Tetsurou’s right, standing up and pushing his chair in. Tetsurou quickly stood up and followed him out of the classroom.

“Hey,” Tetsurou said before there was a chance for an awkward silence to set in. He watched the boy carefully out of the corner of his eye, mentally taking note of what kind of a person he seemed to be.

The pretty boy gave him a smile, all perfect, straight, whitened teeth. Tetsurou ran his tongue over his upper right canine that stuck out from the rest of his teeth, hanging out like a fang when he smiled wide enough. “Hey,” he said back, sounding friendly. “My name’s Danny.”

“Nice to meet you, Danny,” Tetsurou said with a nod. “I’m Tetsurou.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too! Are you new in town?”

“Nah, just new to this school,” Tetsurou said.

“Oh, yeah?” Danny offered another toothpaste-commercial smile. “Where’d you transfer from?”

“Maple Park High,” Tetsurou said, hesitating a moment before deciding how much he should say. “And uh... It wasn’t so much a transfer as it was me getting kicked out.”

“Seriously?” Danny asked, his eyes going wide but his smile not wavering in the slightest. “What’d you do?”

Danny seemed to be reacting well, so Tetsurou offered a grin back. “Guess.”

“How am I supposed to guess?” Danny laughed.

“I wanna see what kind of impression I give off.”

Danny paused to look at Tetsurou before nodding. “Mmhmm. Yup. You definitely killed someone.”

“I’m afraid it’s classified information, I can’t confirm or deny,” Tetsurou said, holding his head up and feeling himself relax a little.

“Yeah, well, if you decide to kill me next, can you give me a heads up?” Danny asked. “So I can stop bothering with my homework?”

“Will do,” Tetsurou chuckled. _Okay, he’s cute. It’s been about one minute, but he’s cute._

“Oh, the library’s right up here,” Danny said, quickly stepping ahead of Tetsurou to get the door for him. “After you.”

“Thanks.” _I’m doing it, mom. I’m making friends. And this one doesn’t look like a troublemaker. And he has really pretty eyes._ “Jeez, this is the school library?” Tetsurou asked once he’d stepped inside, looking around at the tall, almost cathedral-like windows letting in sunlight and the rows upon rows of bookshelves, all dark-stained wood and containing neat, new-looking books.

“Isn’t it nice?” Danny asked. “It just got renovated about four or five years ago. I think some alumnus gave the school a huge donation and now we have this.”

“I wouldn’t mind spending a few hours reading in here,” Tetsurou chuckled, getting one last sweeping look before turning back to Danny. “So, _Huckleberry Finn_ , right?”

“Ugh, it’s _so boring_ ,” Danny groaned as he led Tetsurou to the fiction section and down the shelf marked _S-T_. “I mean, I guess we’ve read worse... It’s better than _To Kill a Mockingbird_ , anyway.”

“You didn’t like _To Kill a Mockingbird_?” Tetsurou laughed, looking up from his search for Twain, Mark. “I _loved_ that book.”

“Oh, gosh, you _like_ that?”

Tetsurou smirked. “I like Shakespeare, too.”

“Oh, _gross_.”

“And poetry,” Tetsurou added. “I _love_ poetry.”

“And here I was thinking we could be friends,” Danny said with a dramatic sigh.

Tetsurou found a single, shining copy of _Huckleberry Finn_ , not a scratch or a tear to be found. Something so beautiful and pristine would never have existed in the rundown library at his old school. “Well, what do you like, then?”

Danny thought about it a moment. “ _Harry Potter_ was alright. I preferred the movies, though.”

 _I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that_. “Not necessarily with books, just in general. If you don’t like English, what do you like?”

“I don’t know,” Danny said with a shrug. “I don’t really like anything to do with school.”

“Oh, yeah? Any idea what you wanna do with your life?” _Actor? Musician? Model, perhaps?_

“I’ll probably just become a doctor or something,” Danny said, like it was the easy path. “Just make a lot of money and take it easy, y’know?”

“Oh, that’s cool,” Tetsurou told him, though he couldn’t help but feel a little resentful that Danny could just go to college and go to medical school for the hell of it. “My mom’s a nurse’s assistant.”

“She’s a nurse?” Danny asked.

“Well-”

“Maybe she could give me some advice for med school,” Danny said with a smile.

Tetsurou decided not to point out that she hadn’t really gone to medical school. “Maybe.”

“Cool! C’mon, let’s go check out your book!”

 _My mom went to medical school and I got expelled for murder_ , Tetsurou thought to himself as he followed Danny to the checkout desk. _Good thing he’s getting to know the real me._

~

Tetsurou was a little disappointed to find that Danny didn’t have his same lunch period, and they only had one other class together, all the way at the end of the day in sixth period. No one in Tetsurou’s third or fourth period seemed very interested in being friends, so Tetsurou decided to go sit in the library by himself during lunch. It wasn’t like he’d brought a lunch to eat anyway, so he just sat at a table by the window and started reading _Huckleberry Finn_. It wasn’t the most captivating book he’d ever read, but it wasn’t as bad as Danny had made it out to be, at least.

As he started chapter two, he wondered what Matt was up to right now.

He wondered how Matt’s father had reacted to Matt getting expelled.

He wondered if Matt was okay.

He wondered why he was stupid enough to still care whether or not Matt was okay, and if he was ever going to teach himself to stop.

~

About halfway through fifth period biology, Tetsurou got called down to the office, which was fine by Tetsurou. Fifth period was proving to be his most irritating class so far. He had never heard someone talk about God so much in a science class.

“Tetsurou Kuroo, right?” asked the lady from the office who’d come to get him. “Am I saying that right?”

After hearing his name mispronounced all day, it was nice to have someone actually ask that. “Actually, yes.”

“I’m Ms. Odell,” she introduced herself, holding out her hand for Tetsurou to shake. “How is your first day going so far?”

“Good,” Tetsurou told her automatically before hesitating. “Fine. Alright, I guess.”

She laughed. “First days are always a little weird. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get used to everything soon enough.”

 _Look, mom, I made two friends_ , Tetsurou thought to himself sarcastically. _I mean, hardly any of the students give a shit about me, but the office lady is nice._

At the main office, Ms. Odell had Tetsurou fill out a few forms that were missing from his file, things that were unlikely to cause issues but were important to have written down nonetheless, like medical conditions the school should be aware of and allergies and medications he was on.

_None, none, and none._

Ms. Odell then found out Tetsurou had never actually been assigned a locker, and let him choose where in the school he’d like his locker to be, so it was close to his classes.

“I swear, no one in this school knows how to deal with a new student,” she mumbled as she wrote down Tetsurou’s combination for him on a blue sticky note. She offered to show Tetsurou exactly where his locker was, but he insisted it was fine.

After that, she told Tetsurou all about different clubs and after school activities available at Willow Creek. She tried asking if he had any hobbies or things he was involved in at his old school, but Tetsurou had absolutely nothing. He wished he had something, as it felt kinda pathetic to say, “Yeah, I’m not really interested in anything at all,” but that was his own fault. He could’ve joined the French club or the green club or something, but he’d forgone all extracurricular activities to spend more time with his friends.

To spend more time with Matt.

_God, I’m so stupid._

“Any other questions while I have you here?” she asked.

Tetsurou shrugged. “Not really.”

“Well, alright then. I’ll take you to your sixth period then. What class do you have?”

Tetsurou pulled out his phone and checked where he’d written down his schedule. “Um, I have history with Mr. Adair.”

Ms. Odell made a face, but quickly regained her composure. “Alright then, follow me.”

 _Well, I’m really excited for this class_ , Tetsurou thought to himself with a sigh.

Outside Mr. Adair’s room, Ms. Odell had Tetsurou wait out in the hallway while she stepped in and interrupted the class with a gentle, “Excuse me!”

“Christine!” came Mr. Adair’s voice from inside, and he sounded creepy as hell. Ms. Odell’s stink face suddenly seemed incredibly justified.

Ms. Odell cleared her throat. “Sorry to interrupt, but-”

“Oh, not at all,” Mr. Adair said, his tone just making it obvious that he was trying to flirt. _In front of a room full of students. Real classy._ “What is it?”

“The new student? You did get the e-mail, didn’t you?”

“Oh, that’s today,” he laughed. _Who is this fuck?_ “Of course, of course.”

Ms. Odell turned back to Tetsurou and said a soft, “C’mon in,” as she ushered Tetsurou into the room.

Tetsurou had forgotten Danny was going to be in this class, and as soon as he saw him, he couldn’t help but smile a little in relief. He took a quick scan of the rest of the room, seeing a couple of familiar faces from his other classes, but then he saw _him_.

Tetsurou looked away from him quickly, too embarrassed to stare, but holy shit... _Holy shit_. Sitting in the center of the room was one of the most _beautiful_ people Tetsurou had ever seen. He was tall and slender, with long arms folded on his desk and long legs crossed underneath, and he had this tousle-y blond hair, and God, glasses had _never_ looked so good on anyone as they had perched on this boy’s (adorable) nose. His pale skin was practically glowing in the sunlight streaming in from the window, making him look positively angelic. Tetsurou couldn’t breathe because this boy was so lovely, the most gorgeous thing Tetsurou had ever seen.

_If he’s a homophobe, I’m just gonna cry._

“Why don’t you introduce yourself, son?” Mr. Adair told him, and it took Tetsurou a moment to register what he’d said before he could answer.

“I’m Tetsurou Kuroo.” _Is he looking? Should I stand up straight? Or does slouching look cooler? Is he even looking?!_

There was an awkward pause, like Mr. Adair was waiting for him to elaborate, but Tetsurou just stayed quiet, too distracted by the angel in the room.

“Is there anything you’d like to tell us about yourself, Mr. Kuroo?” Mr. Adair asked.

“Not particularly,” Tetsurou said before realizing that that probably sounded rude.

_Shit._

Ms. Odell left, and Tetsurou was left still just standing awkwardly at the front of the room. _Is Beautiful Guy still looking?_

Still, as much fun as it was to stand at the front of the room and flounder in front of everyone, Tetsurou pointed to the only empty desk in the room, toward the back and asked, “So, I’m guessing that desk’s mine?” _Let me sit down._

“Actually...” Mr. Adair hesitated. _Please. Just let me sit._ “Mr. Hewitt, take the seat at the back of the room. Mr. Kuroo, you can take his old spot.”

Danny’s eyes went wide for a moment, and Tetsurou tensed up, feeling guilty as he watched Danny pack up his things and move to the back of the room.

 _Well, there goes that friendship_ , Tetsurou thought bitterly as he slipped into Danny’s stolen spot.

It wasn’t until after he’d sat down that he realized that this meant he got to sit next to Beautiful Guy.

 _Talk to him_ , Tetsurou told himself firmly. _Talk to him. Now. Before there’s an awkward silence._

“Hey,” Tetsurou said quickly, offering what he hoped was a friendly smile and not the nervous one he was afraid it was.

“Hey,” the boy said dully before turning to the front of the room.

_Ouch._

_But shit, he’s so cute..._

It was another period of not paying attention to anything his teacher said, but instead of thinking about Matt, Tetsurou couldn’t stop thinking about Beautiful Guy and how adorable his grumpy expression was. If Tetsurou could make that face smile even once, his heart would burst.

When the bell rang, Tetsurou gave talking to him another chance before he could second guess himself and decide that it was probably a bad idea. “I’m Tetsurou.”

Beautiful Guy raised a beautiful eyebrow. “Yeah, I know.”

 _Shit._ “And your name?”

“Kei Tsukishima,” he said, barely giving Tetsurou a chance to think about how lovely a name that was before saying, “Bye-”

“Wait!” Tetsurou grabbed Kei’s arm before he could walk past him. “I haven’t done anything yet, you can’t hate me already.”

Kei just blinked. “I don’t hate you.”

 _Thank God._ “See? We’re off to a great start.”

He raised his eyebrow again, and Tetsurou just wanted to watch him make that expression forever. “No, not really.”

_Aaand it looks like I won’t get that chance._

“Mr. Kuroo, Mr. Tsukishima?” Mr. Adair called. “Can I speak to you both?”

 _What does Mr. Adair need to talk to Beautiful Guy for?_ Tetsurou thought, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. _Did I manage to find this school’s troublemaker?_

_Sorry, mom._

“Partners in crime already,” Tetsurou said with a laugh before internally cringing at what a lame thing that was to say. _I might not be able to show my face at this school ever again. Maybe Maple Park will take me back out of pity._

Beautiful Guy didn’t even respond ( _See? That’s how lame it was._ ), and Tetsurou was left to just follow behind him in shame as he walked to Mr. Adair’s desk.

“Mr. Tsukishima...” Mr. Adair said with an irritatingly condescending sigh. “How many times are we going to go over this?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Beautiful Guy apologized, sounding far more sincere now than he had talking to Tetsurou. “I didn’t get enough sleep last night, and the music helps me stay awake during class.”

Tetsurou tried not to smile. _Wait, so he was just listening to music during class? That’s what makes him a troublemaker? That’s the most precious thing I’ve ever heard._

_Nice excuse, though._

“You need to get your sleep schedule in check, Mr. Tsukishima.”

“I know, sir. I’ll try to get to bed as early as possible,” Beautiful Guy assured him.

Mr. Adair gave a nod, and Tetsurou was honestly impressed at how easily Beautiful Guy was evading Mr. Adair’s scorn. “If this keeps up, I’ll have no choice but to punish you,” Mr. Adair warned, but there was no bite behind it. Beautiful Guy wasn’t getting in any trouble.

“I understand, sir.”

“Good boy,” Mr. Adair said as he handed Beautiful Guy a confiscated iPod- _Wait, not an iPod. An MP3 player. Shit, even_ I _have an iPod._

_Maybe he’s a poor kid, too._

“Go on, go home. Be sure to study for Thursday’s quiz.”

“Yes, sir,” Beautiful Guy said, and just like that, he was heading for the door and Tetsurou’s opportunity to talk to him was gone.

 _I don’t know why I’m trying so hard,_ Tetsurou thought to himself. _He’s clearly not even interested in being friends. No more straight boys, remember?_

“So, Mr. Kuroo,” Mr. Adair began, snapping Tetsurou out of his thoughts. “What brings you to Willow Creek?”

_Well, this should be a fun conversation._

~

“Hey, sweetheart,” Tetsurou’s mom called when she finally got home.

“Wait, you took the bus?” Tetsurou asked, looking at his phone to see if he’d just missed a call from her. “You should’ve called me, I would’ve come picked you up!”

“I figured you were doing homework,” she said with a shrug, going into the kitchen to make herself a late dinner.

Tetsurou wasn’t doing homework. He was reading ahead in _Huckleberry Finn_ , because he’d already finished all of his homework and had nothing else to do. He’d done it all as soon as he got home from school in a vain attempt to stop thinking about Beautiful Guy.

It hadn’t worked.

“How was your first day?” she called.

“It was fine,” Tetsurou said vaguely, unsure whether he should tell his mom about Beautiful Guy or not. _I could at least tell her about Danny, I guess._ “I might have made a friend.”

“Oh, that’s great!” she said excitedly, sounding a little too eager to emphasize something positive. “Who are they?”

“His name’s Danny. He seems nice.”

“You should invite him over sometime.”

Tetsurou just snorted, because there was no way anyone from Willow Creek was ever stepping foot in his house. _Well, maybe Beautiful Guy, if he turns out to be a poor kid._

“Tetsu?”

Tetsurou jumped a little as he was forced out of his thoughts that were starting to revolve around Beautiful Guy again. “Hm?”

His mom stepped out of the kitchen to give him a look. “Don’t ‘hm’ me, there’s a boy, isn’t there?”

Tetsurou sat up straighter. “How do you do that?”

“Is it Danny?”

“No, no, it’s...” Tetsurou sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “His name is Kei Tsukishima.”

His mom grinned. “Is he cute?”

“He’s so cute,” Tetsurou groaned. “God, he’s _gorgeous_.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“A little...” Tetsurou rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know, he didn’t really seem interested.”

“Oh, well, that’s too bad.”

Tetsurou raised his eyebrow. “Aren’t you supposed to say something like, ‘that’s okay, he’ll come around’?”

His mom started picking at her nails. “Tetsu, you know he might not.”

Tetsurou clenched his jaw. When it came to this subject, his mother always turned from an optimist to a realist, and Tetsurou honestly kind of hated it. “Yeah. I know that, mom.”

“Sweetie, I _want_ to be positive, but I just don’t want you to get your hopes up.”

“I’m not getting my hopes up,” Tetsurou insisted. “He’s just cute, that’s all. I’m not going to bother over straight boys anymore, okay?”

“Okay,” she said with a sigh, holding her hands up in surrender and going back into the kitchen. “I’m glad you made a friend and saw someone cute.”

Tetsurou just went back to his book. He didn’t want to think about how Beautiful Guy was probably straight. He had enough depressing things in his life to think about to add another one to the pile.

~

After brushing his teeth before bed, Tetsurou took a moment to just look at himself in the mirror, examining his features one by one. He didn’t particularly dislike the way he looked, but there were definitely things he wished he could change.

He opened his eyes as wide as they would go, watching them and wishing his eyes didn’t look so heavy and tired all the time. Even at his most wide-awake, his expression simply looked like he was up to no good or like he was trying to make bedroom eyes at everyone he talked to.

And then, God, there was his hair... If his hair would lie flat for once in his life, he could die happy. He’d tried cutting it short once in hopes it might look a little more clean-cut, but that had been an utter disaster... For the foreseeable future, Tetsurou was stuck with his hair looking borderline scene. It make him look like a troublemaker just as much as his shifty eyes.

 _A gay, atheist punk with a foreign-sounding name, a violent past, and no father at home_ , Tetsurou thought to himself, laughing a little as he ran his fingers through his stupid hair. _And shifty eyes and emo hair to top it all off. I’m surprised they even let me in the building._

He wondered what it would be like to have a friendlier face or a hairstyle that didn’t stand out so much. Would it have been easier for school officials to believe that he really was a good kid? Would he have made some nicer friends instead of the assholes he’d ended up with?

Would boys like Kei Tsukishima look at him twice?

_“See? We’re off to a great start!”_

_“No, not really.”_

Kei Tsukishima. Kei Tsukishima. Kei Tsukishima.

Tetsurou groaned and shuffled back to his room, flopping down onto his mattress on the floor. It hurt his neck a little, as he still wasn’t used to how much further down his mattress was without his bed frame, but he just ignored it and cursed whatever it was in his that made him such a stupid, pathetic, hopeless romantic.

_Kei Tsukishima. Kei Tsukishima. Kei Tsukishima._

He also cursed whatever it was in him that made him so fucking gay for pretty, tall boys with fluffy blond hair and glasses.


	2. C.S. Lewis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tetsurou was alone in the library again for lunch, but he didn’t really feel like reading today. He didn’t feel like doing anything today. He just wanted to go home and try to not think about Matt.
> 
> _Maybe I should embrace the whole Kei-Tsukishima-as-a-distraction thing_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival." _C.S. Lewis_

For as long as Tetsurou could remember, he had only wanted three things out of life: a good job, a nice house, and a family to take care of.

Of course, beneath these big goals were more specific ones, checkpoints to hit along on the way to achieving these things. He needed to graduate from high school, and with good enough grades so he could go to college, too. After college, he needed to get on a career path and work until he could afford to live in a nice neighborhood, somewhere with white picket fences and big backyards. These two goals fed into each other and made a nice, easy-to-follow timeline for Tetsurou. He didn’t have to (and couldn’t, really) worry about mortgages on his nice house until he had a career, and he didn’t have to (and again, couldn’t) worry about his career until he was actually successfully enrolled in college. Right now, all he could do to help ensure his good job and his nice house were getting good grades and applying for as many scholarships as possible.

But the last goal was different. Starting a family wasn’t bound by a timeline. Sure, there was a chance he would meet his future spouse at college or at work, and having the nice house would a convenient place to put his family, but those things weren’t necessary to get started. If Tetsurou was going to start a proper family one day, he needed a spouse, and to find a spouse, he needed to fall in love with someone, and falling in love with someone could happen at any time at all.

And it became clear very, very early on in Tetsurou’s life that that someone was going to be a boy.

It was never out of any sort of repulsion towards girls; it wasn’t a girls-have-cooties phase that never ended. Tetsurou had just always been absolutely _drawn_ to boys.

Middle school was when Tetsurou had really noticed. He’d had little puppy crushes throughout his elementary years (mostly on Disney princes and, the worst offender, _Howl_ ), but middle school was when the extent of his attraction to boys really kicked in.

Which was a little ironic, because middle school boys were fucking _awful_. While the girls at Tetsurou’s middle school seemed to move up in the education system gracefully, with perhaps a few awkward fashion choices and the occasional unfortunate, neon shade of eyeshadow, the boys were, on the whole, a true clusterfuck of the absolute worst qualities of both elementary school boys and high school boys. With the crude sex jokes they now were beginning to actually understand, a _Family Guy_ -oriented sense of humor, and ungodly amounts of Axe body spray, it was a wonder _anyone_ was attracted to boys.

And yet, Tetsurou found his ways.

Puberty was probably what fucked Tetsurou up the most. Sure, it had its drawbacks, but over time, it did _wonderful_ things for some of Tetsurou’s classmates. Suddenly, his friends were going through voice changes and growth spurts. Crooked teeth Tetsurou had never even really noticed were now being straightened out by braces. And then there were the boys who actually developed some sort of fashion sense, and God, the ones that _smelled nice_.

By the time middle school ended, Tetsurou had figured out exactly where he stood, sexuality-wise, and when he came out to his mom, her reaction more of a it’s-about-time-you-finally-admitted-it than anything resembling surprise. Tetsurou had a very close, honest relationship with his mother, so it figured that he wasn’t able to hide his terribly romantic personality from her.

And he _was_ terribly romantic. On some days, a funny joke or a moment of prolonged eye contact was all it took for him to develop crushes on other boys. After three years of that, he was _dying_ to get the chance to do all the things other boys were started to do with girls, holding hands and going to dances and having first kisses.

Unfortunately, if there were any other boys at Tetsurou’s school who also wanted to do those things with boys, they were doing a very good job of keeping that fact hidden. Not that Tetsurou could blame them, because he didn’t really feel safe being out about it, either. The word “faggot” was thrown around his middle school’s halls like it was nothing on a daily basis. Tetsurou would be lying if he said he hadn’t used it a handful of times just to fit in with the way his friends spoke, but the shame that came with using it quickly became too much to bother with, and he quietly removed it from his vocabulary. His friends hadn’t, though, and maybe they would have understood if Tetsurou had just explained to them how he felt, but he wasn’t exactly in any hurry to test the waters. Telling a group of boys that acted like being gay was the worst thing you could be that he was, in fact, gay didn’t seem like Tetsurou’s idea of a good time.

So, when it came time to move from eighth grade to ninth, Tetsurou resolved to make some new friends.

And he did make new friends. The first week of classes, he quickly became friends with a guy from his math class, Diego, and after a few more weeks, they both befriended another boy from class, Michael. They were a little different from Tetsurou’s old friends, and in some ways, were worse, at least by his mother’s standards. They stole beer from their parents’ fridges and paid strangers to buy them cigarettes. They regularly skipped classes so they could sleep in a little in the morning or go home a little early or have a longer lunch period. Tetsurou was surprised when they completed their first exam and, even after working on assignments in class together all the time, he got an A while Diego barely scraped a C and Michael flat-out failed. It wasn’t what Tetsurou was really used to, when the worst things his middle school friends did were staying out a few hours past curfew and torrenting porn.

But Diego and Michael never said “faggot.” So Tetsurou didn’t mind.

After a few weeks of being friends, the three of them decided to hang out at Michael’s after school, and Michael and Diego asked if they could invite another friend of theirs to join them.

And that was how Tetsurou first met Matt.

Tetsurou knew _logically_ that, odds were, no one he met in high school was going to be that husband he wanted. High school relationships have a remarkable tendency to not last very long past graduation. Even if Tetsurou miraculously found another boy to kiss, that boy was very likely not going to be The One.

He knew that.

He really did.

_But._

There was still just a teeny, tiny part of Tetsurou’s brain that refused this logic, that knew that some people do, in fact, marry their high school sweethearts, that had heard stories of people who meet at a young age and fall in love and last forever and ever. When Tetsurou started high school, and suddenly the prospect of relationship meant the possibility of a high school sweetheart, that teeny, tiny part of his brain was looking for someone. And when Tetsurou found Matt, that teeny, tiny part of Tetsurou’s brain absolutely took over everything.

Tetsurou and Matt had _immediately_ hit it off, and within just a few months of knowing each other, Tetsurou felt absolutely comfortable calling him his best friend. Tetsurou had never clicked like this with someone before, found someone that made conversation so easy, and whose sense of humor just worked with Tetsurou’s. Tetsurou loved listening to him talk, loved the way he thought about things, loved everything about him. It took about a day for Tetsurou to be interested in him, a couple months to realize he had it _bad_ , and by the time freshman year came to an end, Tetsurou was dead certain he was in love.

Every fantasy Tetsurou had ever had suddenly had a face and a name, and that face and name didn’t change for the next two years of Tetsurou’s life. Being in love with Matt for so long had become like a habit.

And bad habits were apparently really hard to break.

It didn’t matter what Matt ended up doing at the end of it all. He was still the face and name of everything Tetsurou wanted. Three years of being crazy about Matt had cemented him into Tetsurou’s brain, and one summer was not enough to get over him.

And so, even after staying up late thinking about Willow Creek after his first day, about his potential new friendship with Danny and meeting Kei, Kei, Kei Tsukishima, it figured that Tetsurou still had dreams about Matt.

Tetsurou dreamt that he still went to Maple Park, dreamt of walking through familiar halls, across old, scuffed floors and past lockers covered in flyers advertising upcoming school dances and math club meetings. He was in his favorite hoodie and a T-shirt instead of a button-down and a tie. He was with his old friends, listening to Michael tell some story while Diego just laughed. And Matt was there, walking right beside Tetsurou like he belonged there, and the two of them were holding hands. And that was fine. No one minded. Especially not Tetsurou. And from the looks of the small smile on Matt’s lips, Matt didn’t mind, either.

Tetsurou had no idea what Michael was talking about, but he didn’t really care. All he could focus on was Matt.

Through some fuzzy transition, something about Matt tugging Tetsurou away from the group to take him somewhere private, Tetsurou suddenly found himself in a little alcove behind school where he and Matt used to just talk. They weren’t talking now, though. Instead, they were just standing close to one another, Matt playing with the zipper of Tetsurou’s hoodie and stepping that much closer.

“What are you doing?” Tetsurou asked with a soft laugh.

Matt didn’t answer, just going up on his tiptoes to match Tetsurou’s height and leaning in for a kiss.

“You’re so cute,” Tetsurou murmured before meeting Matt’s lips and kissing him.

“Fuck off,” Matt mumbled against Tetsurou’s lips. “I’m not cute.”

“The cutest,” Tetsurou insisted between kisses.

_This is happiness_ , Tetsurou thought to himself as Matt completely pressed himself against Tetsurou, reaching up to wrap his arms around Tetsurou’s neck. It was everything Tetsurou had ever wanted. _Being here, kissing him, being able to tell him how much I like him, this is-_

And that’s when Tetsurou’s alarm went off, ripping him away from Matt and back into reality.

_Hell. This is hell._

~

During first period, Tetsurou got his notebook out again for notes, and accidentally turned right to a page with a poem he’d written months ago.

_For Mattie._

Tetsurou quickly closed the notebook and shoved it aggressively back into his backpack, giving it a kick under his desk for good measure. His teacher hesitated and gave him a look before continuing the lesson.

~

“Are you alright, Tetsurou?” Danny asked during second period. They were supposed to be discussing _Huckleberry Finn_ , but Tetsurou had just been drawing hearts and scribbling them out on a blank page in his notebook the whole time. “You seem... off.”

“I’m fine,” Tetsurou mumbled.

_Aside from the fact that every time I feel like I’m starting to get over the boy I loved and was best friends with for three years, there’s always something around that pulls me back in so I get to feel heartbroken all over again. Y’know, aside from all that. I’m great._

Kei Tsukishima had been a fun little distraction from Matt for a while, at least... Tetsurou had thought about him a lot last night. He was beautiful, a walking dream, and there was still a part of Tetsurou that was dying to make that flawless face smile, but... he wasn’t Matt.

How long had that lasted? Little less than twelve hours? Was that really the best Tetsurou could do?

God, even with all of Tetsurou’s little fantasies about getting to know Kei, even with the cute little nickname he’d given him inside his head (Tsukki... It was cute. It suited him.), even with how much Tetsurou had initially been attracted to him, Matt had still been the one he’d dreamt about. It was still just Matt. It was always going to be Matt.

“Hey, Danny,” Tetsurou spoke up.

“Yeah?”

“Do you have a girlfriend?”

Danny raised his eyebrows. “No...?”

“Do you like anyone?”

“Uh, not right now, no.”

“Good,” Tetsurou said as he turned back to his notebook doodles.

Danny was clearly confused. “Why is that good?”

“Just trust me,” Tetsurou grumbled as he wrote out the word, “HELL,” and scribbled that out, too.

Danny paused before clearing his throat. “Um... Do you have anything to say about the book? Because I didn’t actually do the reading and if I get called on, I don’t have anything to say.”

Tetsurou sighed and started flipping through his own copy of the book. “Which chapter are we on?”

“Six,” Danny said, his shoulders slumping a little. “Are you not caught up either?”

“Oh, no, I’m way ahead,” Tetsurou told him. “I’m like, almost done.”

Danny’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?” he asked. “How do you _do_ that?”

Tetsurou couldn’t help but laugh a little at that. “How do I _read_?”

“How do you read _this_?” Danny groaned as he flipped through the pages. “I tried getting through it last night, I really tried, and I just _can’t_.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tetsurou said as he turned to chapter six. “Oh, Jesus, really? We’re only here?”

“Thank goodness we’re only here,” Danny said, sounding frustrated.

“I got you covered,” Tetsurou assured him with a smile, putting aside his own problems so he could tell Danny about Huckleberry Finn’s shenanigans thus far.

~

Putting aside his problems worked out alright in second period, with Danny as a distraction, but on his own and left to his own thoughts, Tetsurou was back to square one, stuck thinking about the dream.

It certainly wasn’t the first time he’d had a dream like that since the fight. He actually used to have them almost every night, as if his brain was just taunting and torturing him. Little by little, they’d become a little more sporadic, but still definitely recurring.

It just didn’t make any sense. Why was Tetsurou’s subconscious still so consumed with Matt, after everything that had happened? Did this mean there was really some part of Tetsurou that still wanted to hold hands with Matt? To sneak off somewhere private and kiss? It was hard to fathom when just the idea of _seeing_ Matt made Tetsurou feel sick. Wasn’t it time to fucking move on already? Why couldn’t he have stupid kissing dreams about Danny or Kei? How many pretty boys was Tetsurou going to have to meet before his brain fully realized that he wasn’t in love with Matt anymore?

_You’re not in love with him anymore_ , Tetsurou told himself firmly, gritting his teeth. _You’re not. You’re not, you’re not, you’re not._

Why did convincing himself of that have to be so difficult?

Tetsurou was alone in the library again for lunch, but he didn’t really feel like reading today. He didn’t feel like doing anything today. He just wanted to go home and try to not think about Matt.

_Maybe I should embrace the whole Kei-Tsukishima-as-a-distraction thing_ , Tetsurou thought to himself, doodling a stick person with rectangular glasses into his notebook. He was alone in the library again for lunch, but he didn’t really feel like reading today. He didn’t feel like doing anything today. He just wanted to go home and try to not think about Matt.

But he couldn’t. Missing school was a waste of money.

_And thinking about Matt so much is a waste of time._

Tetsurou drew a stick figure version of himself beside his stick figure Tsukki, giving himself ridiculous spikes for hair and a frowny face. Tapping his pencil on the tabletop, he thought a moment of how that looked together. Emo hair and glasses. It wasn’t a bad combo.

What could go wrong, Tetsurou wondered, if he purposefully focused his attention on Tsukki for a while? Worst case scenario, he genuinely starts liking him and he’s just left pining for a different straight boy. Pining for Tsukki, just a random pretty boy, would be better than pining for the boy who’d punched him in the face and called him a fag. Pining over just about _anyone_ would feel better than pining over Matt. It’s one thing to want what you can’t have, but it’s entirely new, worse thing to want what has already actively rejected you and insulted you and gotten you expelled from your fucking high school right before senior year.

Tetsurou took a deep breath. _Yeah... I think a little harmless flirting with Tsukki might be good for me..._ He drew a little heart between the stick figures, but didn’t cross this one out. _At this point, it can’t hurt._

~

As it turned out, Tetsurou wasn’t as good at a little harmless flirting as he’d thought he could be.

Sixth period had been something of a disaster. Tetsurou had been ready, he had been _so ready_ to start talking to Tsukki, to strike up a nice conversation and be cool and confident and charming.

And that went the fuck down the drain when Tsukki walked into class, and Tetsurou, after hesitating for just a fraction of a second, taken aback a little because he’d forgotten exactly how pretty Tsukki was and realizing that maybe, just maybe, this was a terrible, terrible idea, proudly called out, “Tsukki!”

It wasn’t until _after_ he’d said it that he realized that “Tsukki” was not actually Kei Tsukishima’s name. And it had just all gone downhill from there. He ended up spending their whole conversation trying to convince Kei to let him call him “Tsukki” (even though he honestly didn’t even care), only to be reminded harshly by Tsukki that they are not friends. Not at all. And at this rate, they never will be.

It could’ve been worse, but God, at this rate, Tetsurou felt like he never wanted to talk to Kei Tsukishima again. Tetsurou didn’t think of himself as an awkward person but Tsukki had quickly proven him so, so wrong. What was even the point of trying to win him over at this point? Perseverance? Stubbornness?

Getting over Matt?

_That’s a good point._

As he walked out of class at the end of sixth period, he decided that for the time being, Tetsurou needed to back off. He needed to go home, regroup, and come up with some sort of a plan. If he was going to get close to Kei Tsukishima, brute force was not the way to do it.

Then Tetsurou actually stepped outside and saw Tsukki sitting by himself on a bench outside of school.

The thought that he might not have a ride home immediately entered Tetsurou’s mind, and the keys to his own car suddenly felt heavy in his pocket.

_You’re not gonna talk to him. You’ve bothered him enough for one day. Go home._

Tetsurou couldn’t bring himself to keep walking, though. What if Tsukki was stranded here, waiting for someone to come pick him up? What if Tsukki was like Tetsurou and lived in a poor neighborhood outside of the bus routes? What if his parents worked late and wouldn’t be around for _hours_? If that was the case, Tetsurou couldn’t just _leave_ him here.

_Don’t bother him._

_Offer him a ride._

_Don’t. Bother. Him._

_You can’t leave him stranded here._

_You know this is a bad idea._

_You would feel guilty if you left him._

In the end, kindness overcame awkwardness. Which was saying a lot.

“Hey, Tsukki,” Tetsurou said without thinking. At this rate, he was probably never going to end up calling Kei Tsukishima by his actual name.

Tsukki, as expected, didn’t look particularly happy to see him. “Kuroo,” he muttered in return. Maybe Tetsurou should’ve been concerned because being called by his last name felt kind of enemies-ish, but he honestly kind of liked being called that. Kuroo and Tsukki. It had a nice ring to it.

“You need a ride?” Tetsurou asked, jingling his car keys as proof that he had his own car. Even if it wasn’t a very nice one, that had to be cool, right? Having your own car?

“No,” Tsukki said flatly.

“You sure?”

Tsukki wasn’t even looking at Tetsurou anymore, instead turning to pull a textbook out of his backpack. “My brother’s gonna be here in like, ten minutes,” he explained.

_I shouldn’t have fucking talked to him._

“Got it,” Tetsurou said, feeling even more awkward than he had before as he walked away. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

“We’re not friends!” Tsukki called after him, and Tetsurou stopped in his tracks, turning to look at Tsukki.

He hadn’t realized it before, but hearing Tsukki now, something was suddenly clear, something in Tsukki’s voice. He didn’t say it like he was angry, like he hated Tetsurou’s guts and the clothes on his back and the earth at his feet.

Tsukki said it like he felt awkward, too.

But Tsukki didn’t have a reason to feel awkward; he hadn’t done anything wrong. Tetsurou was the one being annoying. So why did _he_ feel awkward?

Kei Tsukishima was not cold-hearted and antisocial.

Kei Tsukishima was _shy_.

And Tetsurou could work with shy.

“What’s your brother’s name?” Tetsurou asked.

Kei narrowed his eyed. Whatever he’d been expecting Tetsurou to say, it wasn’t that. “Akiteru.”

“How old is he?”

“Twenty-five.”

“You get along with him well?”

Tetsurou was watching Kei carefully to gauge his reaction to all this, but as Kei cautiously nodded his head, Tetsurou felt like he was the one being watched and studied. Kei’s eyes were so focused on him, making him feel like he was under a microscope, he couldn’t help but be a little self-conscious.

“That’s good,” Tetsurou said as he lifted his hand to run his fingers through his hair, as if that was going to fix anything at all. “I’ve never had any siblings, but I always thought it’d be cool to have a brother.”

Kei was quiet for a moment, but before he could say anything else, his phone buzzed loudly in his lap, and Kei’s eyes finally gave Tetsurou a break as he turned to answer it.

Seeing Kei on his phone gave Tetsurou an idea, and it was a probably really bad idea, but... Well, if Kei was just shy, maybe all he needed was a nudge.

“Hey, Tsukki, can I have your number?” Tetsurou asked.

Tsukki turned away from his text to give Tetsurou a look. “What? Why?”

_Oh, my God, he didn’t say no._

Still, Tetsurou didn’t feel like “friendship” was going to be a good enough answer.

“I’m a little lost in history right now,” Tetsurou lied, because it was the first thing that came into his head. “It’d be nice if I could ask you some questions sometime.”

Tsukki didn’t answer right away, and Tetsurou felt like maybe he had jumped the gun on this, but then Tsukki asked a hesitant, “ _Just_ for homework stuff?”

_Holy shit, this is actually working._

“You don’t have to sound so disappointed, Tsukki,” Tetsurou teased, even going so far as to offer a smile.

Tsukki scowled, and Tetsurou immediately knew he’d fucked up. “I wasn’t _disappointed_ ,” he snapped. _Too far, too far, holy shit, too far._ “And no, you can’t have my number-”

“Tsukki, I was joking,” Tetsurou assured him. He’d felt like he’d actually made some progress and he didn’t want to lose that already. “Really, I promise, _just_ homework questions.”

Tsukki didn’t look convinced, still shooting Tetsurou a dirty look, but after a moment in which Tetsurou doesn’t even dare breathe, he gave a sigh and grumbled, “Fine.”

_Oh, thank God._

Tetsurou quickly unlocked his phone and opened up a new contact before handing it over to Tsukki, and holy shit, Kei, Kei, Kei Tsukishima was giving Tetsurou his phone number. Even if it was just for homework questions, it was _Kei Tsukishima’s phone number_. Tetsurou never would have _dreamed_ he could get so far in one day.

A car pulled up to the curb, and Tetsurou could only guess from the look of recognition on Tsukki’s face that this was his ride. Tsukki finished filling out his contact, handed the phone back to Tetsurou, and started shoving his things back into his bag.

“Thanks, Tsukki,” Tetsurou said, feeling almost honored as he slide his phone back into his pocket. “ _Now_ I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Tsukki didn’t bother responding, instead just throwing his bag over his shoulder and hurrying over to get into the passenger’s seat of his brother’s car.

His brother’s _really nice_ car. Like, nothing ridiculous, like a Ferrari or Rolls Royce or anything, but compared to Tetsurou’s 1987 Audi 5000 (which could’ve been great if it had been taken care of properly, but it certainly hadn’t since Tetsurou’s dad left), Tsukki’s brother’s car was a dream.

_So maybe Tsukki isn’t a poor kid like me after all_ , Tetsurou thought to himself, feeling a little disappointed as he stepped into the parking lot to find his own car.

Even so, that was the _only_ thing Tetsurou had to be disappointed about, if that. After the complete disaster that was sixth period, he had actually gotten Tsukki’s phone number. If Tsukki was willing to do that, Tetsurou’s impression couldn’t have been _all_ bad, right?

There was a chance it was just out of pity or social pressure or something like that, but Tetsurou didn’t think about that. After he found where he’d parked, he leaned against the driver’s door, pulled out his phone again, and fired off his first text to Kei Tsukishima.

_To Kei:  
it’s tetsurou~ thanks again for the number!_

With a deep breath and a small smile, Tetsurou opened his car door and slide into the driver’s seat.

_I got Kei Tsukishima’s phone number._

Tetsurou’s smile started to fade as he started up the engine.

_I got Kei Tsukishima’s phone number._

Tetsurou hesitated before putting the car into gear, just tapping his fingers on the steering wheel and thinking.

_I got Kei Tsukishima’s phone number_ , he told himself.

_Shouldn’t I be happy about that?_

~

The good news was that Tetsurou had successfully distracted himself from thinking about Matt. By the time he got home from school, his mind, for the second day in a row, was completely stuck thinking about Kei Tsukishima.

The bad news was that Tetsurou still didn’t feel any better.

Thinking about Tsukki just felt different today. Worse. A _lot_ worse. But Tetsurou had no idea why. He’d felt alright about it earlier, but the more distance he put between himself and Tsukki, the worse he felt, and now that he was home, he felt like complete shit about the whole thing.

But _why_? It wasn’t like Tetsurou had done anything wrong. He’d talked to Tsukki a few times today, being nothing but nice, and had gotten his phone number for homework questions. That was fine, that was completely innocent.

So why did Tetsurou feel so _skeevy_ about it?

Even if everything so far had just been friendly, the whole experience just somehow felt _shameful_. Tetsurou was already dreading confessing this plan of his to his mother, his idea about distracting himself with getting close to Tsukki and all that. Either confessing or lying about it. But why? _Why_ did he feel like he had to lie? What was there to feel ashamed of? Why did he have to feel so _guilty_?

For the second day in a row, Tetsurou’s mind was still stuck on Tsukki, and for the second day in a row, Tetsurou tried sitting down on his bed and doing his homework in an attempt to get his mind unstuck. If he was going to feel shitty about something, it might as well be the stupid, busy-work homework sheet that was due tomorrow in history.

Tetsurou had actually been looking forward to history, at least more than some of his other classes. He actually found a lot of history fairly interesting, so it had been pretty disappointing to not only have Mr. Adair as his teacher, but to be studying a time period that he’d already covered just this past semester at Maple Park. It was going to make things easy, of course, but God, why couldn’t he be repeating math or science? Why did it have to be one of the subjects he actually would’ve liked to learn more about?

Looking at some of the questions on the worksheet, Tetsurou already knew over half the answers, but there were enough that he was iffy on that he had to consult the textbook. And after about twenty minutes of consulting the textbook, it was very clear that the answers to these questions were not _in_ the textbook.

_It’s like the universe doesn’t_ want _me to do my homework_ , Tetsurou thought with a sigh as he tossed the textbook aside and flopped back on his bed.

_Or maybe, just maybe, the universe wants you to text Kei Tsukishima._

Tetsurou glanced over at his phone.

_No._

He _did_ have Tsukki’s number, didn’t he?

_I shouldn’t._

And it _was_ for the express purpose of asking for help in history, wasn’t it?

_I really, really shouldn’t._

Tetsurou had never thought he would actually _need_ help in history, but maybe lying was about to pay off.

_Yeah, that’s a real great moral to this story_ , Tetsurou thought with a snort as he sat up and reached for his phone.

He looked at the only text he’d sent Tsukki so far, the confirmation text so that Tsukki had his number, too. Tsukki hadn’t responded, but Tetsurou hadn’t really expected him to.

_You have an excuse to start a conversation with Tsukki_ , Tetsurou told himself in an attempt to psych himself up, but everything in his body was just screaming, _Nooo._

Tetsurou honestly would’ve loved to just pass up the opportunity, give Tsukki some space and give himself a chance to figure out why he felt so bad, but he had ended up in the unfortunate position where he actually kind of _needed_ to text Tsukki, if he wanted to get his homework done.

_Okay, you’re being ridiculous_ , Tetsurou thought with a sigh, going to type out a text message to Kei. _You’re just... nervous. You can text Kei. You want to text Kei._

_Or at least, you wanted to twenty minutes ago._

After spending an unnecessary five minutes deciding what greeting to use, how to address Tsukki, how to phrase the question, and whether or not to add an emoji, Tetsurou came up with a text he was satisfied with and, with a deep breath, tapped send.

_To Kei:  
hey tsukki, i’m trying to do the homework but i can’t find anything in the textbook. was there a handout or something i missed?? u_u_

Tetsurou wasted another ten minutes waiting for a reply, but it didn’t come.

Tetsurou didn’t know if he was disappointed or relieved.

(Yes, he did. He was relieved.)

What Tetsurou _actually_ didn’t know was whether he was being ignored or if Tsukki was simply too busy, hanging out with his brother or meeting a friend or something. Either way, all Tetsurou could do was wait, so with history homework out of the question for the time being, Tetsurou switched to math, pulling out his precalculus textbook and a notebook.

That didn’t last very long either, because when Tetsurou went to turn to clean page, he just landed on another page of doodles, hearts and song lyrics and incomplete poems, all written with Matt in mind. With the feeling of shittiness at an all-time high, Tetsurou shoved all of his work back into his backpack and gave up, choosing instead to just stare up at the ceiling and do nothing at all.

Tetsurou didn’t understand. He knew exactly why thinking about Matt made him feel so awful, but why, _why_ Tsukki? Why was he so anxious about the possibility of getting a reply from him? Why was he already dreading seeing him in sixth period tomorrow? It wasn’t that Tetsurou disliked him or anything; talking to him today had definitely made Tetsurou like him more. Shouldn’t he want to keep talking to him then? Shouldn’t he want to keep chipping away at Tsukki’s shy personality? Find out what kind of person he is? What his hobbies are?

Tetsurou did know to know those things about Tsukki. He just didn’t want to have to ask.

~

Today, Tetsurou picked his mom up from work.

“Hey, sweetheart,” she said as she slid into the passenger’s seat, taking a deep breath as though she hadn’t had a chance to sit down in ages. Knowing her, she probably hadn’t. “How was school?”

“Fine.”

His mom waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t.

“That’s it?” she asked. “Fine? Did you talk to that boy again? What was his name...?”

Tetsurou cleared his throat as he shifted gears and drove out of the Sunny Loch parking lot. He had been hoping to avoid the topic, but the conversation hadn’t lasted ten seconds before it got to Tsukki. “Kei Tsukishima.”

Tetsurou’s mom snorted. “I meant the other one. Danny, right?”

_Fucking shit._

All Tetsurou said was, “Oh.”

“Well, did you talk to _Kei Tsukishima_?” his mom teased.

“A little,” Tetsurou admitted, tapping his fingers along the steering wheel.

His mom hesitated a moment, and even without looking at her, Tetsurou could tell she was giving him a funny look. Still, he didn’t say anything about it. “What did you talk about?”

Tetsurou just shrugged.

“There’s a story, isn’t there?”

“What makes you think that?” Tetsurou mumbled.

“You’re acting weird,” his mom said, nudging him with her elbow. “C’mon, spill the beans.”

“I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Okay, now you’re weirding me out,” she said. “Seriously, Tetsu, what’s wrong? Did he say something to you?”

“No, no, it’s not like that,” Tetsurou assured her. “It’s just me bothering him, it’s nothing bad.”

“Okay. Why are you bothering Kei Tsukishima?”

“I mean, I’m not _trying_ to bother him, it’s just...”

His mom waited for him to finish, but he never did.

“Tetsu, why are you being like this?” she asked, starting to sound genuinely concerned. “C’mon, you know you always feel better after talking about it.”

“But I don’t even know _why_ I feel bad about it.”

“What specifically is making you feel bad?”

“I don’t know...” Tetsurou gave another shrug. “I didn’t feel bad _while_ I was talking to him earlier, it just after, when I thought about it. And... I don’t know, I just kind of started the day feeling bad, anyway.”

“Why’s that?”

Tetsurou brought the car to a stop at a red light and slouched back in his seat. “I had another dream about Matt last night.”

“Aw, sweetheart!” his mom said sadly, putting a hand on Tetsurou’s shoulder. The pity just made him feel worse. “You’re still having those?”

“Yup,” Tetsurou grumbled. “Still.”

His mom sighed. “Good dream or bad dream?”

The light turned green and Tetsurou started driving again. “They’re all bad dreams, mom.”

“I meant was it good before you woke up from it?”

Tetsurou slouched back in his seat. “Yeah.”

“I see.” 

Tetsurou glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “What do you see?”

“You had a dream about Matt, you felt bad about it, you tried talking to Kei, and now you feel worse. Right?”

“Right...”

“Tetsurou, please tell me you’re not trying to make yourself like Kei just to get over Matt.”

Tetsurou’s face fell. “God, how do you _do_ that?” he asked, forever incredulous at his fucking psychic mother.

“Aw, _sweetheart_.” She sounded so disappointed in him that Tetsurou was almost certain he couldn’t possibly feel any worse. (Almost. He _had_ felt worse before, after all.)

“Don’t ‘aw, sweetheart’ me,” Tetsurou said defensively. “I’m not doing anything wrong!”

“Using someone isn’t wrong?”

“It’s not like that! It’s not like I’m ever actually gonna be in a relationship with him! As long as he thinks I just want to be friends, there’s nothing wrong with it!”

“Which is why you have such a clear conscience, right?”

Tetsurou tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “But-”

“Imagine you became really good friends with this boy,” his mom went on. “Would you ever admit that you only started talking to him to get over a boy?”

“Well, no, but-”

“Then it’s wrong.”

Tetsurou didn’t respond. Was it really so wrong, befriending Kei just because he knew that he’d develop feelings for him at some point, and he wanted to get over Matt? It’s not like he was _using_ him, he was just...

Using him. He was using him.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” Tetsurou asked quietly. “Am I just supposed to stay hung up on Matt until I magically run into some perfect guy who makes everything okay again?”

“Tetsu, sweetheart, you realize you can exist without having a crush on anyone, right?”

Tetsurou snorted.

“I’m serious,” his mom insisted. “Why can’t you just be _friends_ with Kei? Why does it have to be about liking him?”

“I don’t know, that’s just how my brain works,” Tetsurou said. “I’ve wanted to be in a relationship since I was like, twelve.”

His mom sighed. “And maybe that’s part of the problem. I don’t know, I don’t like the way most people talk about love, how it’s all about finding _the one_ and things like that.”

Tetsurou cringed, as he personally was incredibly invested in finding _the one_ , but said nothing.

“I don’t think you should go through life with an empty space, just waiting to fill it in with a life partner,” she continued. “People aren’t puzzle pieces. There’s never going to be one perfect fit.”

“That’s deep, mom.”

“Hey,” his mom laughed, quickly picking up on the sarcasm. “I’ve been thinking about this stuff twenty years longer than you have. If you get a crush on someone because they’re funny or smart or have the stars in their eyes, then that’s fine, that’s whatever. But don’t force something just because it’s convenient or because it’s easy or just because you can. It’s not good for anyone involved.”

Tetsurou sighed. He hated that his mom was always so overwhelmingly right. “Fine. I won’t talk to Kei anymore.”

“You can still talk to him!” his mom told him. “Just try to be friends! Focus on being friends with Kei and Danny and aim for a high GPA. That should be enough to keep your mind occupied, shouldn’t it?”

Tetsurou just stayed quiet as he turned onto their street and pulled into the driveway.

~

Tetsurou was still thinking about what his mom said hours later, sitting on his mattress and playing a Styx album on his record player.

Being friends with Danny. Being friends with Tsukki. High GPA.

Why _wasn’t_ that enough?

When had he become the type of person who justifies using Tsukki to deal with his own shit just because Tsukki won’t know about it?

When had he gone from being a hopeless romantic to completely revolving his life around romantic relationships?

Taking a moment to really reflect and be honest with himself, Tetsurou didn’t really even _want_ a relationship right now. Being rejected by Matt, getting expelled from his old high school, starting new at an expensive private school he couldn’t afford... All that stuff was _exhausting_. Tetsurou didn’t want a boyfriend. He wanted a good, long nap and a scholarship.

And he really, really wanted some friends.

The only people he’d talked to over the whole summer were his mom and Ukai-san from the nursing home. How nice would it be to have friends his age again? People to hang out with after school and do stuff with and text-

_Bzzt bzzt._

Tetsurou looked over at his phone and saw that Kei had finally texted him back.

_From Kei:  
yeah we got a packet about the jazz age last week_

Tetsurou picked up his phone and stared at the message for a moment.

_Friends with Kei Tsukishima. Like, actually friends. One-hundred percent platonic._

Tetsurou could do that.

_To Kei:  
damn... could you like send me pictures of it or something??_

_From Kei:  
hold on, i’m about to have dinner, i’ll send them afterward_

Tetsurou smiled to himself. Tsukki was actually willing to help him out.

_To Kei:  
i’ll be waiting~ no rush ^_^_

Friends with Kei Tsukishima.

Maybe it was something to feel good about after all.

In a sudden burst of inspiration, Tetsurou went for his notebook and, as usual, turned straight to a page covered in hearts and stick figures holding hands. Tetsurou tore it out.

He flipped through and tore out every single page he’d filled out during his Maple Park days, whether it had to do with Matt or not. Song lyrics and chemistry notes alike all got ripped out, sending thousands of tiny paper bits all over Tetsurou’s carpet like snow.

Tetsurou was tired. He needed to make room for positive things. And he couldn’t leave room for Matt anymore.

Once he was done, Tetsurou threw away all the dead pages and actually felt like a load had been lifted from his chest. The only evidence he had of his feelings for Matt was sitting at the bottom of a recycling bin.

When he sat down to give his math homework another go, the first page he turned to was blank, pristine, and beautiful.

(Well. As beautiful as college-ruled notebook paper could be.)

As good and fresh-start-y as Tetsurou felt when he started his math homework, it was still math and kind of rough to get through. Nevertheless, Tetsurou was still feeling pretty good by the time he finished up, and just as he finished putting his math away, as if on cue, Tsukki texting him again.

_From Kei:  
Attachment - 5 pictures_

_From Kei:  
let me know if anythings to hard to read_

_From Kei:  
crap_

_From Kei:  
*too_

Tetsurou couldn’t hold back a grin as he texted back. Kei Tsukishima was _adorable_. Tetsurou was going to be best friends with him if it was the last thing he did.

_To Kei:  
thanks!!! (^_−)−☆ youre the best_

For as long as Tetsurou could remember, he had only wanted three things out of life: a good job, a nice house, and a family to take care of.

Beneath these big goals were more specific ones. Checkpoints to hit along on the way to achieving these things.  


Graduating from high school. Going to college. Working until he could afford the mortgage on a house.

And if Tetsurou was going to start a proper family one day, he needed a spouse, and to find a spouse, he needed to fall in love with someone.

But falling in love was not a priority. Tetsurou was not going to let it be a priority anymore.

Right now, his priorities were getting a high GPA and making friends.

After all, once he got everything he ever wanted, he was going to need someone to brag about it to.


End file.
